Video

I used to use Windows Media Player with error correction on, but now I use CUErip / CUEtools

Are DACs also split between studio and HiFi/audiophile categories?

Do you guys ever feel the need to respond to reviews like this? czcams.com/video/tt82UyPEeK0/video.html

It’s 22.05 kHz.

Indeed!

And here I was thinking one was for near field and one was for room filling sound

The Yamaha NS-10 started as a home speaker that wasn’t very popular, because it’s harsh. It became the most popular and important studio monitor, because it’s extremely revealing in the midrange. Some years ago, I got a pair of Tannoy DMT-12 midfield studio monitors, but found them hard to mix on, because they were too polite - they did that audiophile thing. Now I use them for my hi-fi, and they’re great.

I have to say, Gabriel Mervine here in Octave is simply astounding. I wish it was more my "type" of music; nevertheless, I listened awhile. If you want to hear great arrangement, take a visit.

Especially back in the 1970s, some producers would "album" mediocre songs along with the hit single. Rare instances yes, but some artists lost favor because of dis-interesting tracks. An album or CD can get a lot of tracks distributed if done right.

Studio speakers/monitors have a flat frequency response whereas audiophile speakers will add color. My thoughts - Cheers

Paul is trying to sell his very expensive equipment to you. When your about 20 your hearing is going down the hill. When you’re 50 the most people can hear between 14 and 16 kHz. When you are used to your music on your own system and you play it on another system it sounds different, but better !!! I dont know.

Let's start be saying monitors are near field listening speakers. Hi-fi speakers tend to be listened feets away from them in a chair drink a whisky. So they need to fill a room and sound has to travel more distance so that's the principal difference. Also audiophiles will fall for 20k dollar cable scams so easy. I prefer studio monitors with them pointed at my ears at arms length distance while I work on the computer.

Studio Monitors destroy any “speaker” … I’ll put up my Genelec 8351B in any environment against the best “speaker”.

Forget about the purpose, think about the engineering. Studio Monitors are active, their amp+cab+speaker are engineered together. In HI-fI systems, speakers and amps are designed separately. Active monitors use active filters and individual amplifiers for each band (2-way or 3-way) designed to compensate for the inherent resonances of speaker+cab and deliver the most linear freq and phase response, which means the amp response is not linear but inverted relative to the speark+cab response. Hi-fi amps are designed to produce a linear output and the hi-fi speakers are expected to produce a linear response to that flat signal, but it is physically impossible (which is the key point here)!!! The speakers, cabs and passive filters all have their own non-linear (bell-shaped) response curves and engineers try to match their resonances the best they can to flatten the response, but it can never be achieved perfectly in a passive system due to the physics of it. So instead, the engineers go for pleasant sound (relying on taste and preference) rather than linear/accurate response, allowing for the peaks to be in favorable ranges (emphasizing e.g.60 Hz and 2kHz) and the dips to be in unfavorable ranges (e.g. a dip around 500 Hz can reduce muddiness and a nasal quality to sound). Either way, to cut all the marketing bullshit, studio monitors are technically more advanced and accurate, while home speakers may sound subjectively more pleasing to different listeners, which feeds into the hi-fi marketing agenda that pushes people to go through dozens of amp+speaker combinations over the years, never actually becoming satisfied, which is exactly where audiophile equipment producers want them to be - on an endless purchasing journey. Regards, happy owner of Yamaha HS-8 studio monitors of 10 years, who ditched all his hi-fi equipment (like Monitor Audio and KEF speakers and Onkyo amp, etc.) and never looked back. I like flat response, that's all.

You could have fun with a decades or time-progression release. In other words big band gave way to solo vocalists, then Kingston trio variety, supremes etc. Once pop went mainstream, Chicago stirred everything up with brass and single-side classical compositions. For awhile Barry Manilow mainlined, then later Anita Baker. Interspersed were Moog, Mellotron and Munich machine. There's so much influence to cover. Such a release could also be played track-to-track. There have been such collections in the past, but yours could be heard for the quality.

Yeah because everyone at home is A/B-ing shit back and forth. 🤦 This reminds me of the higher megapixel arguments.

FLAC sucks! I did a lot of comparison. Blind, not blind, whatever. FLAC sounds maybe a little cleaner, but it is losing the original recording intendancy, such as some noises etc. FLAC losing original recording charm and even in some cases STEREO effects. Oh, people...

Hi Paul. We've both been around this industry longer than I like to think about.... I agree with you on 24 bit 44.1 not being worthwhile. Qobuz labels it as hi res but I really consider that a bit of a misnomer. I disagree with you on the true hi res PCM issue. I'm not a big SACD fan, largely because of the issue with being limited, for the most part, to one piece players. I also find some SACD's to be overly smooth. A really good hi res, say 24/192 recording is well worth while plus you don't have the incredible limitations of no post product being practically possible. I will always choose great music over great recordings of music I don't care about. I do rip my favorite, mostly classical, LP's at 24/192 with an Ayre A/D convertor. The area of SACD/DSD that interests me most is great analog recordings of classical music, the early Deccas, RCA Living Stereo, Mercury Living Presence, etc. Still have the issue of being stuck with the onboard DAC, though. Best to you and your lovely and very pleasant wife.

Two years later, the two groups mentioned are across the pond. That's probably why unfamiliar, though both are here on youtube. These days I could get into buying some tasty jazz -- very few artists still play that variety.

Apologies in advance. Though it's great you're meeting the market demand., I'll never ask for vinyl.

Most people fail blind tests when hearing SACD vs redbook CD.

i noticed the same thing i habe 16:44 24:192 cds of the same album both originalmasyer and remaster. i also used youtube straight from the artist topic channel and i hear the same acrosss original master and remaster from all 3 version and yeah hi res is complete snake oil

❤🧡💛💚💙💜 ❤🧡💛💚💙💜 ❤🧡💛💚💙💜

Always thought my LS35A was made as a studio monitor. With the right front end they were magic, even with no deep bass. Really nice with my Dynaco Stereo 70 on the 16 ohm taps. I’d like to find an album mastered with them.

Yes can tell different

32 bit more room as 24 bit gose in red volume led

Studio MONITORS are monitor! They are made to show you the BAD part of the music and that’s why they criticize it… HiFi speakers try to show you that everything about a particular music is perfect

What about the idea of having a pair of speakers which reproduce any genre of music which when recorded in room at realistic volume levels from speakers set 11 feet apart with the microphone 8 feet distance from each speaker resulting in the same track recorded from line out to line in into the same recorder exhibiting the same subtleties throughout all of the original recording when compared on full range headphones.

Too bad I can't buy Uncle Festive at a higher sampling rate. That was more than a generation ago, so the master recordings may not still be around.

I am personally fine with mp3 320 kbps, but I also have to say that I don't have any great audio setup.

Thanks Paul. I’ve learned a lot here in this brief video. 1. About SACD format and how it works. And 2. That it’s designed for middle aged audiophile farts who are trying to get that extra level of quality out of Pink Floyd and Steely Dan. Resulting in 3. Me having zero interest in this format lol. I appreciate you breaking it down and the comments section here has saved me a TON of time not going down this rabbit hole. 🙏

Please post some of your recordings 🙏

So what is best for me on a Computer PC. i have a sound card that can play 16-bits or 24-bits and betwen 44.1 Khz - 48 Khz - 88.2 Khz - 96 Khz - 176.4 Khz - 192 Khz ... Witch one is best do you think? Thx for a good video. / Sweden!

DSD will not require any error correction like SACD and CD’s need, so a DSD file will always sound superior. What about PCM conversion to DSD? That changes the sound, is it better? I think so.

as most dacs are dsd inside does pcm really exist anymore?

Quantum computing.

If more hifi enthusiasts get to hear a great pair of studio monitors very few of them would want to go back to hifi speakers and all the cable bullshit.

You own the most expensive microphones in the world...and your desk looks like it's being held together with bubblegum, lol.

Audiophile speaker systems are designed to cater our psychological preference of hearing by emphasizing and attenuating specific freq bands and, in some cases, intentionally allowing a certain extent of distortion (saturation) to happen. They strengthen the strengths and alleviate the weaknesses in the original music file. Studio monitors are designed to reproduce sound as loyal as possible to its original state without purposefully applying any artificial optimization or coloration. They not only objectively show all the delightful nuances in the original music file but also ruthlessly reveal all the flaws and downsides in it.

Well most people only stream music from Spotify etc. So let the service determine your streaming speed and the send you appropriate quality audio. If the Internet speed is high, Spotify etc should stream lossless audio automatically. So whether or not one can really make out the difference or not, what's the harm in streaming lossless audio if the internet speed is fast. I think Spotify already does this, I'm not sure though. CZcams determines the video quality automatically (and hence the audio quality too)

But what about pre-emphasis? Some CDs have pre-emphasis, and most RIP tools do not apply de-emphasis.

How do you know/verify that FLAC files are from lossless source and you're not actually just buying a lossless of a lossy?

When i dj on studio monitors it sounds so incredible really struggling to understand why i should use “dj” speakers with boosted eqs in bass etc when i have an amazing clear sound and all the controls on my mixer, feels like i should just take my studio monitors over 15 inch with 18 subs like im being told i need…

Ocvtave Sacd. Bach Cello concertos excellent disc terrible packaging, Octave don't seem to want to address this problem

Beautiful studio !

is flac best got 1tb

Usually the near field monitors will produce LESS bass frequencies then the far field monitors. the near field woofer will be 5" to 8" in most cases, the far field will be 8" and above... a good mixing engineer (and most of us do) usually will mix most of his time on the near filed, and will switch to the far field from time to time for reference. also a good mixing engineer will know how the mix his creating on the near fields will translate to headphones, car system, audiophile system etc.. mixing on a far field monitors only, will produce a lack of bass most of the time as far field are giving bigger bass response, the room usually will enhances it, and the engineer will mix with less bass accordingly.

Hires is a waste of time.

I dont think i need a subwoofer when i have a qarter wave T-line BMS12S330 with Icepower1200A2 + tube input. But its easier to use a subwoofer for better bass placement i can agree on that 100%

Great explanation! Thank you for this